Necessary Endings

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Necessary Endings

August 30, 2024

Topic: Necessary Endings

Dr. Henry Cloud

Bible Passage: John 15:1-2, Ecclesiastics 3:1-8

Embrace Necessary Endings by Dr. Henry Cloud

The sermon titled “Embracing Necessary Endings for Growth and Betterment” emphasizes the importance of letting go of certain things in order to facilitate growth and improvement. It discusses the difficulty many people, including high performers, face in letting go but highlights the necessity of recognizing when it’s time to move on. The message encourages having a clear vision and pruning away what does not align with that vision, focusing on the best and letting go of the rest. It also touches on the spiritual aspect, suggesting that God calls us to deeper and richer experiences through necessary endings and invites us to participate in this process of pruning in our lives.  Vintage Church LA is a vibrant and welcoming community rooted in the unchanging gospel of Jesus Christ, committed to rich gospel-centered discipleship, hungering for the in-filling, presence, and empowerment of the Holy Spirit and seeking to love our world in the name of Jesus

Church

Dr. Henry Cloud

Shepherd Threads…

Using CEO Hack – Merlin is AI transcription and summary extension. It may not be 100% accurate but helps transcribe the sermon.

Notes

Using CEO Hack – Merlin is AI transcription and summary extension. It may not be 100% accurate but helps transcribe the sermon.

  • [00:04] Necessary endings are crucial for growth and improvement.
    – God is always leading us towards something new and better in life, even if it involves pain.
    – We are also called to leave behind things that are not beneficial for our growth and well-being.
  • [02:49]Letting go is a challenge for many, even high performers
    – Recognizing the difficulty in ending something invested in like a strategy, person, or business
    – Exploring the psychology behind hoarding tendencies and codependency in helping others
  • [07:46] Have a clear vision and prune towards it.
    – Define your ideal vision for different areas of life.
    – Identify what currently does not align with your vision and needs to be pruned.
  • [10:15] Recognize when it’s time to let go.
    – Sometimes, despite efforts, certain things won’t work out as hoped.
    – Just like dead branches, some things in life are blocking progress and need to be removed.
  • [15:05] Focus on the best and let go of the rest
    – It’s important to prioritize and focus on what’s truly profitable and necessary.
    – We often get involved in activities and relationships that drain our resources and energy, and it’s vital to evaluate and let go of what no longer aligns with our values and goals.
  • [17:21] Sometimes, God calls us to something deeper and richer.
    – We all have limited time and energy to invest in building lives.
    – As children grow up and leave, it can be a difficult but necessary transition.
  • [21:48] Endings are necessary
    – Emotionally tied to things that need to change
    – Hope is not always helpful if it keeps you on the wrong path
  • [23:51] Recognizing the need for necessary endings in relationships
    – Sometimes it’s not the person that needs to go, but the dynamic of the relationship that must change.
    – Taking a pause to assess and address patterns can lead to restoration and growth.
  • [28:00] God is always pruning our lives as an invitation for us to participate
    – Pruning in our lives can be painful but necessary for growth and improvement.
    – We must be willing to go through the difficult work of pruning, facing fears, and letting go.
  • [30:00] Learning to navigate necessary endings for growth.
    – Struggling with firing an employee, giving her multiple chances to improve.
    – Realizing the difficulty of letting go, even seeking help to handle tough situations.

Full Transcribed Version

  • (00:01) [Music] we’re going to hop into it I I’m going to start with giving you two words it’s a title of today’s time together and I want you to think about these two words as we go through what I’m going to share with you I wrote a book on this with these two words as the title and the two words are necessary endings necessary endings think about those two words necessary if something is necessary means we have to have that occur in order for something else to be ending means something stops it no longer
  • (00:50) is it’s gone necessary endings have to occur in order for some things that we want in our life in our lives to have happen and that’s what we’re going to look at today you know there’s one there’s many truths in in the Bible and in the ways of Jesus and God’s ways but one of the things that we know that God is always always doing this truth is throughout the whole book throughout our lives one thing he’s always doing is he’s always trying to call us to something new and something
  • (01:35) better now they may that may mean a big change sometimes as we’ll see and it may mean even without anything changing in a context but a new and better way of doing whatever we’re doing but he’s always in the growing and making us in life get to a better place business and sometimes that involves pain it doesn’t look better but he is always moving and he’s always also calling us not only to new and better but he’s also always inviting us to leave some things that are not so good behind
  • (02:14) us and you can just bet every day in a million ways he’s Whispering along those two paths so we’re going to look at how this this happens today when I wrote the book The reason I wrote the book I’m I’m not smart enough to come up with ideas um I have a day job and I spend many many many many many many days um sitting in war rooms um when I did a lot of clinical work with people working through life issues mostly I I work in the field of leadership now with CEOs and their companies and in those War rooms I just
  • (02:54) found over the course of a couple of years I found myself having the same conversation over and over and over and and I that’s how God speaks to me about writing this is something that it would be good to go into and research and find out about it because this is a problem for many people and the conversation was even among High performers and some of the strongest people that you know we look at even they have difficulty sometimes ending something they have difficulty letting go of something that they’re in invested
  • (03:30) in it might be a strategy it might be a person it may be an entire business it may be whatever context and in people’s personal lives letting go is a hard thing to do it’s really really hard how many of you are hoarders you know why okay this is a big room no hands go up one or two you know why there all in denial they are you can’t be a hoer without using a lot of denial how many of you are really organized okay how many of you organized people are helpful the technical term is codependent okay I’ll tell you you know what happens
  • (04:18) when a codependent dies somebody else life life’s flashes before their eyes because they’re always trying to help everybody else but if you’re organized and codependent you have volunt teed your time to one of your hoarder friends cuz you look at that garage you look at that closet go I can help you and they go oh yeah help me and you come over and you wait into there and you know you go you pick up the first thing you say how long’s it been since you used this and they go 20 years they go they they have
  • (04:51) electric ones now I mean why don’t we throw this one no you go why not and they say I might might need that holding on and then you pick up something else and you go what’s this and they they go that was Johnny’s first poopy diaper can’t throw that away well Johnny’s 40 playing video games on the couch cuz she can’t kick him out of the house either but we hold on because of attachments and fears and we look at that but God is many times saying I got something way better for you but you got to loosen the
  • (05:35) grip so I started to study this and and what I did was um I I really wanted to learn because the Bible talks a lot about something called pruning and I started to look in the scriptures and what it says is that God is always pruning and he prunes in several contexts which we’re going to talk about but one of my favorite favorites is he says I am the vine and you are the branches so he’s the source and we’ll look at the science of printing in a second of what the vine does and then we are producing fruit in
  • (06:12) our lives good fruit or bad fruit but he’s always trying to prune and what he says is that even those that are producing good fruit he’ll prune them getting rid of stuff so they can have better and more fruit and then on the other side said if the the branch isn’t producing fruit then he cuts it off so I go talk to the pruners and I actually um I flew all the way to Tuscany to talk to literally um the greatest wine maker in the world he won the best wine in the world three years in a row um I might have gone for personal
  • (06:52) reasons but this was this is a scientific project and so I I went to him and and he’s going to walked me through The Vineyards we did an episode on this and filmed the whole thing and and he was walking me through The Vineyards and I’m expecting to hear about you know when you start like pruning The Vines I said well let’s hop into it and he says well the first thing and this surprised me but the first thing the pruner said was we don’t start with pruning because that’s what we would do at our house you know drive up
  • (07:23) in the driveway and go where’s the house when’s the last time we had these trees prun see we see it as only as a problem but he said you don’t start there he says you’ve got to start with the vision he said when I look at the vineyard I’ve got to see the vineyard in 10 years and what I want to look like and all the way down to each particular Vine what am I trying to create on that particular Vine I’ve got to see the ideal first because you don’t prune stuff just away you prune towards
  • (08:01) something good so as you’re going to go think about this I hope later um what’s your vision for the area of life that you’re looking at what do you want a marriage to look like what do you want your health to look like what do you want your career whatever it is what you want that kid to look like that we have a vision of what it is we’re trying to build so let’s start there and then you ask this second question what exists right now that does not fit that future and that becomes the key to
  • (08:36) everything what am I doing now involved in how am I behaving what what is it that I’m doing that if that doesn’t end I won’t have that and that’s how pruning begins so I go talk to the rose bush people and um after the wine maker didn’t do it the next day that was a joke it’s just a joke and so here’s what the rose bush people told me they said the same thing they said well first we start with the vision and knowing what a ideal Champion Rose looks like and I said why he said because the bush is going to create more
  • (09:22) Buds and more branches then it can sustain to full fruition of what a road should be because it’s all taking resources so we start pruning and then they said we prune in three contexts same thing the wine guy said we prune in three contexts and I’m going to go through these and unpack them and we’re going to look at life the first one is there it’s going to have more buds than it can sustain and many of them are really healthy but they’re not the best and we’re using resources for not the
  • (09:58) best they could go to what can become the best if they had those resources secondly there’s some that are sick and not going to get well and you know you fertilize them and you work with them and you try to help them in California you blow a Little Smoke on them it’s legal some of you are just afraid to laugh I know but you do whatever you can you know you get them coaching and you send them to therapy and all this kind of stuff and it’s some point you just realize that dog ain’t going to hunt
  • (10:34) that’s what we used to say in the South it just sort of like teaching a pig to sing have you ever tried to teach a pig to sing don’t think of your boyfriend right now but it really the music is bad and it frustrates the pig there’s just some things that aren’t going to work okay so that’s the sick and not going to get well and then the third category is a bunch of branches that are dead they’re just taking taking up space so I want to hop into these and unpack them in a way that we can can hopefully begin to
  • (11:08) identify some things that are keeping you from what God has for you in your lives so when I get into it I’m looking at the pruning science and all that then I go back to the scriptures and all of a sudden I saw a passage that I had read a thousand times and not only if you’ve if you’ve never read the Bible and you’re here as a vis this morning or you came from one of these incredible Little Lives that we saw let’s hear it for the parents so cool so cool speaking of necessary endings your life of sleeping
  • (11:45) is over so when I get into this and I start to to look at what the scriptures say I came across this passage and here it is you might remember the the song by the birds turn turn turn to every thing there’s a season turn turn turn I can’t sing but you know the words but here’s where it’s from it’s Ecclesiastes 3 it says everything there’s a season under heaven for these activities and its Beginnings but look at The Passage through these eyes I never had seen it before the whole passage is
  • (12:23) about Beginnings but also endings and many of these are a good things is born and die look at this a time to plant but a time to uproot what’s been planted many good things in our lives we plant and we tend to it and we grow it and it’s a good thing and we get a lot of fruit from it but at some point it’s time to even uproot those good things because it’s a new season if we can keep going there necessary ending for the video guy there um kidding maybe performance review okay I am playing okay look at this one
  • (13:07) a time to tear down and a time to build now you used to think about that one you know you build it but then you tear it down but what what’s it saying we got to tear it down before we can build what’s new it’s got to precede it the ending has to come first weep and laugh mourn and dance and change the page a time to get scatter stones and then a time to gather them all up sometimes say the party’s over let’s take everything home a time to and this is a hard one Embrace Embrace certain visions and strategies
  • (13:44) and dreams or even people and then a time to refrain from embracing and then a time to search we look for answers we look for ways to fix it this that other sometimes it’s time to give up so as we go through this I want you to think about there are many things in Li in our lives that have seasons and sometimes that season has passed and it may be the season of my frame is frozen okay we’re going to wing it the first one is this good but not best good but not best friend of M bought a company one time um it was a
  • (14:33) small company 25 million or so in sales and within a handful of years about four years or so fiveish he had taken it to 500 million and on his way to a billion I asked him how’d you do this and he said well I looked at all the activities the company was doing he said I looked at all those and he said I’ll never forget this phrase the life of the company in the future was in about 20% of what it was involved in and so I called my manager team together said January 1st I want all this other stuff gone we need all our
  • (15:07) people and resources to focus here I don’t care if you have to give it away I don’t care if we lose money on it but we’re going here and we got to get rid of this there was push back but I said oh so the the 80% was not profitable and here was his genius I said oh it was all profitable it was all profitable it just wasn’t the best and we needed those resources see many times our lives like the bush we’re creating more activities and more things we’re involved in and more things we love and
  • (15:41) and companies have this problem all the time and and we’ve grown all this stuff you have meetings and policies and and product lines and and it just gets this big and it’s time to say where’s the life and our lives are like that t now we’re going out to dinner and we’re getting ready we’re going out to dinner with this couple and um I found myself slowly kind of getting depressed so what is wrong with me I thought we’re going to this I love the restaurant I love Tori thought about the
  • (16:15) couple and I thought why are we going out with them and we kind of did it sort of somewhat every now and then frequently and I thought about it and they were good people I mean we enjoyed them and this the other but I looked at kind of the years and and when we had really known them it was very involved time um with some you know activities are involved in the season was great and all of that but they had gone a different direction in life and they were pursuing different kind of things than we really cared about we
  • (16:54) just that season it seemed like why are we doing this and and so asked her I said I said why why are we going out with them she said because you wanted to I said I don’t want to she said I don’t either I said well why and so we started to unpack this and and I’m thinking there as I’m getting depressed well if we had this time available there’s relationships that that we want to go deeper in and we need this time I mean we could go out with G and Lizzy tonight if we weren’t doing this or at least
  • (17:27) Lizzy I mean this could be really you know and how many times have you had that conversation with somebody you la we’re just so busy we’re just so busy sometimes God is calling us to something that he wants to go deeper and richer and some things have to be pruned now that’s the first scenario I’m sure you have many good things in your lives but you got to look at uh and basically what are we talking about everybody comes into life with two big resources those babies they got two big resources that all of us started
  • (18:10) with time they got a certain amount of moments ahead of them and we all have different amounts of moments and their second resource is energy the energy of their heart mind soul and strength and moments that they will take that time and invest that energy in that will build lives and so to to look at that and then we start building resources and there’s money and talent and and relationships and all this kind of stuff where is it going that’s really good but to get there I need that time to invest I thinking to my sister-in-law um
  • (18:54) they have three kids and they’re entering empty nest land and by the way those babies will one day grow up and leave I remember when we dropped Olivia our oldest off to college I didn’t I didn’t even know Uber drivers had Kleenex I have never many many times never many times felt pain like that Dad gun it we did everything right and they grow up and get competent and leave that’s your [Music] payback and it was awful but I knew it’s such a Bittersweet thing because now it’s time for that season of her life but ours it ended but
  • (19:47) we still had one more at home we could try to screw up and so a few years later Lizzy goes off to college and Tori and I are in the quote empty nest and about the second week we’re we’re in the kitchen and we’re we’re getting dinner ready and Tori goes am I supposed to feel guilty that I really like this you know the new season once you get through the pain there’s some good things to that too but a lot of times it’s good stuff we have to let go of all right so that’s the first category now we’re
  • (20:21) going to get to even sometimes a harder one and that’s the one where the things are sick and they’re not getting well sick and not getting well now this one is uh something we can all identify with you know a lot of times it can be in business or or personal life I remember um when the girls were about 10 or 12 we were eating breakfast one morning and I said what’s happening today they goes we got some at school called The Power Team I I said oh they’re so cool there’s strong guys that come in and they could Olivia Lucy
  • (21:00) they’re amazing they could take your teacher and lift her up over their heads and they can take a block of ice and punch it it’ll break I said but the most amazing one they can take a phone book and rip it in half Olivia looks at me and goes what’s a phone book she’s 12 years old she was born in an age where that season had passed so the next day I I go to New York for business and I’m standing in line at JFK for a car the lady standing next to me I said so what brings you to New York she says business I said what
  • (21:34) do you do she said oh we make phone books so you should talk to my daughter you know sometimes we hold on to stuff emotionally and that season has passed because it’s that business model is sick and not getting well and we’ve got to reinvent but we get we get emotionally tied to stuff I mean why did it it take a bankruptcy judge instead of the smartest car Executives in the world why did it take a bankruptcy judge to get GM to shut down Pontiac when’s the last time one of you bought a Pontiac let his vintage you
  • (22:13) know it hadn’t made money in 40 years when they shut it down there were people who couldn’t let go how many of you married your prom date okay first of all how many married people we have in here all right how many of you are married to your prom date see there’s the exception every time it proves the rule but the rest of you are looking back and go oh God did I dodge a bullet right that was an ending what if you hadn’t been able to say I’m just not feeling it which is the new breakup line
  • (22:50) right endings are necessary guess y’all would put an end to this sermon okay ending things are necessary sometimes they’re hard you know I was um but we get stuck in you know hope is a great virtue but one of the worst virtues you can have is Hope if you’re going down a wrong road the hope that that road is going to turn into the right Road when the kids were were growing up um we had a babysitter who was single and um she would travel with us a lot of times and and we go to Hawaii for spring break and and she would always go with
  • (23:30) us from the time the kids were gone by the way you parents get somebody to travel with you all you’re doing is moving the chaos to another zip code if you don’t but we she would travel with and she was really you know part of the F the girls loved her and she would always go well they get to be about you know 12 or 13 they wouldn’t even go without her anymore we didn’t even need her to really help but they you know so she’s really integ ated in into their lives and all this well Lucy the little one is she’s about six
  • (24:03) at this time and we are standing on the beach on Sunday getting the last time on the beach you know everybody’s invested in going to the beach on Sunday morning because we got to go back except our friend she’s standing over the side on her cell phone sobbing and upset we know she’s talking to her boyfriend I won’t mention his name but in the Greek or Hebrew it’s a bad word um nightmare Lucy our six-year-old goes dad remember last year on Sunday she was standing over there crying on the phone same
  • (24:49) guy same guy sometimes a six-year-old can see it but we’re so stuck in this program and we keep having hope and it’s not going to get better but sometimes marriages like this sometimes people can feel that way it’s not the person we need to get rid of sometimes what has to end is the way that we’re being in that relationship and I’ve seen many many many marriages where they were at the point I just have to move on we’ve grown past each other or whatever until you can hit pause long enough to have some necessary endings to
  • (25:37) some patterns on either side even from the good one of how that’s being dealt with you know seeing God restore impossible situation but so it’s not always the person we don’t always have to leave our company or our career but sometimes the way that we are being in it I remember another single guy that came to me one time he trying to decide I said how can I help he said I’m trying to figure out if my girlfriend is the one I said well tell me about her he starts telling me about he goes but I
  • (26:06) don’t know she’s I said what are the problems and he’s going this and this and this and and I said I don’t know you know she’s she’s really not spiritually where I would like her to be and and I’m listening to this and so I said you know what I get it I don’t think she’s the one he said yeah I kind of thought maybe she isn’t he said why do you say that I said so I was thinking about what kind of woman would be good for you and she’s definitely she’s not going to fit so I
  • (26:33) was starting to think of what kind of woman and then I begin to realize I think you should get a dog I go he says what and I said well with a dog you know they can they’ll play with you when you want to you know they’ll kind of be on your timetable and do whatever you want and they’re fun and and you you can train them I said but then I started thinking about you know the dog’s not going to work really cuz cuz you might have to come home early one day to let them out or you might have to get up in the
  • (27:09) middle of the night to take them outside because they’re scratched on the door to go potty or you might have to get up early or something I said a dog is going to inconvenience you so that’s not going to work God forbid a woman I got it you should get a goldfish and he’s looking at me like I’m crazy but I’m so smart about this I said gfish you just you know you can put it there and it looks beautiful and you can show it off to your friends and drop it a few crumbs every now and then I think you should get a goldfish
  • (27:43) but definitely not marriage he had to realize and we worked further and ultimately um about a year and a half later he did find the one why because he became the one he changed his ways that was getting in the way of what God had brought him five good ones by then but he had to do some work and see what we don’t realize a lot of times we’re talking about pruning we’re not just talking about you pruning what we’re talking about is God is always trying to prune and prune Our Lives it’s an invitation from him to us
  • (28:26) to participate I just had three surgeries in the past few years and and got out of a lot of pain I’m great I have no pain now um I got both knees replaced and I’m playing golf again and everything’s great but I’m so glad I didn’t hop off the table in the middle of the surgery because it gets painful they knock you out see God’s always trying to to prun us and sometimes it’s painful but we have to sign up sometimes to go through the work because it’s hard because we have fears and it’s hard to
  • (29:09) let go I was in when the kids were little a little group parenting group and it was mostly moms and me it was it was parenting preschool and it’s something I decided I was going to do with the girls so you go play for a couple hours and you know finger paint all this stuff but the last half hour you sit in the I was at a mommy’s group and it was me and so we always talk about problems and and this woman High powerered type you know executive type she comes in and says I got a problem he said what they said have you ever had to
  • (29:41) fire your Nanny and people have had to go through it she goes I just can’t do it I mean she’s we love her and she’s so great but she’s just not what the kids need and there’s the years going I and I just can’t do it and we walked her through a script and how to do it and sent her back and said we’ll come back next week and tell us what happen she comes back we said you fire than any she goes no I couldn’t I me I was going to I sat down talking to her and ended up giving her a
  • (30:08) raise I just I couldn’t get the words out he said well next week you’re going to do it so we walk her through it again she doesn’t do it for like three or four more weeks and we keep coming back and so we told her if you don’t do it this week you’re out of the group she comes back the next week we go what happened she said well I I couldn’t do it so I I got my husband to do it we’re going okay at least you solved your problem what out she goes well I couldn’t even be there when he
  • (30:41) did it he was going to do it at lunch and I I went out and I came back and I walk in the house and my husband is in the kitchen and I look out on the patio and there’s this guy sitting out there talking to the nanny I look at him and he goes he’s kind of caught she said what he goes That’s the guy I hired to fire the nanny see this stuff is not [Music] easy it’s not easy but God I know every person in here because if you know just because the way he does life and it may be a career change it may not be it may be patterns it may be
  • (31:27) that we need to change even in our careers it may be in a relationship I don’t know what tomorrow and better looks like for you but I do know that to get there it’s going to involve letting go of some stuff and he will help you with that so I’m going to close with one reading you one little verse here um it’s it’s just so true it’s out of First Peter he says therefore since Christ suffered because Christ put a necessary ending to something called Death necessary ending to something called death but he had to suffer to do
  • (32:03) it it was painful and then he says arm yourselves since he suffered arm yourselves with the same resolve because anyone who has suffered in their body is done with sin now we know that doesn’t mean we’re done with making mistakes and all of that but it means that we have left some things you know these patterns of relationship of bitterness and and all this kind of stuff that we have to get over and anger we’ve got to be done with it and then this is the part I wanted you to he here therefore he doesn’t live out his
  • (32:39) remaining time on Earth for human passions our desires that just keep getting in the way of good life it doesn’t mean good things it means these involvements that aren’t bring bringing Health in what we’re doing and then here’s the phrase for you have spent enough time in the past carrying out the same desires as everybody else but he’s calling us to something different now I don’t mean religion and go become some religious cook I stayed away from God for a long time because religious people I’m not very religious
  • (33:22) I I I used to say I like God I just don’t like his friends they’re weird and some of you might be visiting today or came for one of these babies maybe you’re just here you never would go to church because I agree with you you got hurt or saw these religious stuff and you thought it was crazy and so does God it was the religious people that didn’t like Jesus and he wasn’t too fond of them either he hung out with the normal people and he offered him something different which was not religion but a
  • (34:02) relationship so whether you’re exploring Faith or into the faith I can promise you every day God is giving little hints what need do I need to let go to let go of to have what he wants for me God bless you guys